Okay, so I'd officially been diagnosed with Dermatomyositis. This was back in late November of 2009. My doctors (rheumatologist and dermatologist) immediately put me on super doses of steroids as well as a couple antimalarials and immunosuppresants. (Just some other drugs that are supposed to be somewhat effective in treating the skin issues in these kinds of autoimmune diseseases). It provided relief within days. I still had a bad rash and had a hard time moving my legs, but the swelling had gone down and the muscle pain was all but gone. Most people have a love/hate relationship with Prednisone. It has some wicked side effects, but it sure does work its magic.
As the drugs were doing their thing, Dr. Koening began scheduling me for just about every Cancer screening known to man. All of them. Apparently there is some connection between Cancer and Dermatomyositis. They don't quite understand it but a significant percentage of Dermatomyositis patients are soon after diagnosed with some form of Cancer, so they do all the screenings just to be safe. I wasn't too concerned about it. It was just a formality. He was just being overly thorough.
The mammogram was one of the first screenings we did back in January of 2010. It was clean. I also underwent a CT scan of the abdomen to check for any unusual masses there. They found a small cyst like mass in my liver and wanted me to do a follow up MRI to make sure it wasn't anything more significant. My doctors even seemed sure that it was nothing so though they insisted I schedule the MRI, they didn't rush me. I didn't end up doing it until just a month ago. Dr. Koening called me a couple of days after and said that the mass in my liver was nothing, but the MRI happened to pick up the lower part of my breast revealing a 4 cm lump that didn't show on the mammogram last January. He wanted me to come in for an ultrasound and biopsy. We did them on the same day. Ultrasound confirmed that the mass wasn't just fluid. It had portions of tissue that were blood fed. The biopsy determined that the tissue was malignant and THAT is how this all started.
It's kind of odd the way it all worked. I never would have had the Cancer screenings if I hadn't first been diagnosed with Dermatomyositis. And they wouldn't have caught the lump in the breast if they hadn't inadvertantly shot a little high on MRI of the liver. Crazy thing is that the current theory among all my doctors now (dermatologist, rheumatologist, oncologist, yadda, yadda) is that the Cancer was there all along and has been growing for years now safely hidden away in my dense breast tissue (could hide a buick, remember?) but the Cancer kind of kick started the Dermatomyositis which revealed everything. AND, with successful treatment of the Cancer, the Dermatomyositis will just go away. Here's to hoping they are right.
1 comment:
I'll raise my chocolate milk to that! I hope they are right too.
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